The further and continuing adventures of the girl who sat in the back of your homeroom, reading and daydreaming.

Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Um, "Ooops"

I didn't figure it out until Tuesday: I took my May vacation the wrong week. This puzzles me, as I was quite sure I had looked up the pertinent date (the big Dayton Hamvention) and asked for that week, but I'm not sure that where I looked it up was right.

And to add to my woes, the actual Hamvention weekend I've got the one-week-in-five early-morning shift plus mandatory weekend overtime. Trying to adjust that but given a number of factors (techs on extra duty for the big race and the usual conflicts), I am having to talk fast...while being off work and unable to do any talking face-to-face.

Since that trip -- made, in recent years, with my pal Turk Turon -- is one of the big deals of my year, I'm feeling quite vexed. Should have double-checked. Didn't. Grr.

Ah, forget it. I'm done whinin'. (I'm about ten percent convinced my mind is going. This a fear of mine; my paternal grandmother went that way shortly before I was born and I've mentioned my Dad did a sort of long, slow fade that was painful to watch, especially since there was nothing that could be done. Oh, the noncommittal, friendly guy he became was pleasant to talk to, especially for me, since my career goals* and lack of education had been a terrible disappointment to him and there had long been considerable, h'mm, strain and reserve in our relationship; but he wasn't quite my Dad anymore. Swelp me, if I start goin' that way, I'll be doin' it all alone.)________________________________________* Parents: "Have you really thought about what you want to do for a living? This radio business isn't very stable and it doesn't seem to pay well." Me, age 19: "Well, I'd really like to be a science-fiction writer!" Parents: Long, stunned silence, followed by guffaws, "Hehehahaha.... No, a real job, something that actually pays money. At least enough so you can go back to school." Me: "Um, radio?" I moved out within a few months of that conversation, half-convinced I had no legal right to do so.

"I saw to what extent the people among whom I lived could be trusted as good neighbors and friends; that their friendship was for summer weather only; that they did not greatly propose to do right; that they were a distinct race from me by their prejudices and superstitions."